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Trump And Xi Chat About North Korea; A Vocal RMB Bear Capitulates; More Internet Tightening-Sinocism-09.07.17

"Sinocism is the Presidential Daily Brief for China hands"- Evan Osnos, New Yorker Correspondent and National Book Award Winner

Happy Thursday…You may have noticed that the newsletter has gotten quite PRC politcs heavy. I did my MA at SAIS on Chinese Politics under Alice Miller and so Party Congress seasons are especially fun. When I was getting my degree the consensus was Jiang Zemin was a powerless flower pot. Trying to figure out PRC elite politics is never dull and often impossible, some even say it especially appeals to masochists…

To all the new readers, the newsletter tends to run long but I promise you that a scan of the top “Essential Eight” is always worth your time. Thanks for reading.

The Essential Eight

1. Trump-Xi Talk North Korea; More UN Sanctions Coming; Can North Korea Already Launch A Nuclear Attack On The US?

Comment: The two leaders had a phone call, not many details released but sounds like there was agreement on the need for tougher sanctions, though do not expect China to agree to a full oil embargo.

President Donald J. Trump spoke today with President Xi Jinping of China to discuss North Korea’s September 3 test of a powerful nuclear device. The two leaders condemned North Korea’s latest provocative and destabilizing action and noted North Korea’s current path is dangerous to the world and not in its own interest. President Trump and President Xi committed to strengthen coordination and take further action with the goal of achieving the denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula.

The United States wants the United Nations Security Council to impose an oil embargo on North Korea, ban the country’s exports of textiles and the hiring of North Korean laborers abroad, and subject leader Kim Jong Un to an asset freeze and travel ban, according to a draft resolution seen by Reuters on Wednesday.

Marks told me that Mattis’s statements reflected the views of top American commanders. “There is certainly a hawkish option on North Korea,” he said, “but there is no hawkish faction at the Pentagon. Nobody wants another war in Korea.”

More Reason For Concern: Michael Morell, acting director and deputy director of the Central Intelligence Agency from 2010 to 2013, writes in the Washington Post that he believes North Korea can already launch a nuclear attack on the US. If true, is directly negotiating with Kim the only realistic policy option left?

I believe that North Korea may have the capability today to successfully conduct a nuclear attack on the United States. I believe that the conventional wisdom may be based on a fundamental mistake of logic: Just because North Korea has not yet demonstrated a capability does not mean it does not have it.

2. Are North Korea’s Nuclear and Missile Programs Now Nearly Immune From Foreign Sanctions?

Early in its six-decade quest for a nuclear arsenal, North Korea relied on technology and experts from the Soviet Union, then later from Iran and Pakistan. That it can now draw on its own scientists indicates it will only become harder to contain Pyongyang’s nuclear ambitions.

“We should be very concerned about North Korean researchers abroad, particularly in China,” said Katsuhisa Furukawa, a member from 2011-2016 of the U.N. panel of experts monitoring sanctions enforcement on North Korea.

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Comment: The New York Times reports that Javanka (Ivanka Trump and Jared Kushner) are not going to Beijing this month as expected, Commerce Secretary Ross was humiliated by President Trump over the failed deal at the Comprehensive Economic Dialogue, Secretary of State Tillerson looks diminished…Every administration has struggled with the idea of a “China Czar”, the closest was Paulson under Bush but he was more focused on economic dealmaking than a broader strategic approach to the relationship. Given the mercurial nature of this President, would he ever listen to a China Czar anyway?

Why It Matters: The Chinese side thought that it had figured out the Trump administration, starting with Ambassador Cui’s courting of Javanka. Expect that the current situation has given an opening to Trump’s CEO advisors, and Henry Kissinger, to get more involved in China policy. I have heard one of those friends has been working on the Trump Beijing visit date directly with the PRC ambassador…

Meanwhile, Steve Bannon will be speaking next week at the CLSA Forum in Hong Kong. CLSA is owned by CITIC. Is Bannon doing it for free or is he getting paid with PRC money?

The National Security Council is conducting a review of the White House’s China policy — taking into account Mr. Trump’s populist trade agenda and differences over how to curb the rogue government in North Korea — but it has commanded little attention. Aside from Mr. Trump himself, it remains unclear who in the administration wields genuine influence on the relationship.

Jared Kushner, Mr. Trump’s son-in-law, who helped broker the first meeting between the two presidents last April, was once expected to function as a high-level conduit.

But his involvement in China has waned; he did not accept an invitation from the Chinese to go to Beijing this month for a visit that some expected would be in preparation for Mr. Trump’s state visit in November.

Other officials who have staked a claim to China, such as Secretary of State Rex W. Tillerson and the commerce secretary, Wilbur Ross, have run afoul of Mr. Trump, either on specific policies or broader issues. And Mr. Trump’s national security adviser, Lt. Gen. H. R. McMaster, is not playing the coordinating role on China that several of his predecessors did.

4. Guo Wengui Formally Applies For US Asylum

Comment: An interesting move given that Guo has said repeatedly that the US government already offered him and his family asylum and that he has 11 different passports. At a time when the Trump Administration is kicking out many good, qualified people, it seems a stretch that someone with a background like Guo’s would get to stay. And whatever intelligence value he may have had is likely long devalued. But starting this process has likely protected him from being sent back to Beijing in some kind of a deal, and who knows, maybe his Mar-A-Lago membership will fast track things for him…

Asylum – even a pending asylum application — would give Mr. Guo more protection because he could stay in the United States while the application was being considered, a process that can take years, Mr. Ragland said.

5. New Head of The Central Military Commission Political Work Department

Comment: Miao Hua has replaced Zhang Yang director of the CMC Political Work Department, identified by new title in a PLA Daily article about a lecture on the exemplary deeds of a soldier named Wang Rui. Xu Qiliang attended. Further confirmation that rumors of Zhang Yang’s detention are likely true.

The other princelings that were excluded are: General Liu Yuan, the son of former President Liu Shaoqi; Admiral Liu Xiaojiang, the son-in-law of the party’s former General Secretary Hu Yaobang; General Zhang Haiyang, a son of former Central Military Commission Vice Chairman General Zhang Zhen; and General Liu Yazhou, the son-in-law of former President Li Xiannian.

6. After Huge Losses A China Yuan Bear Submits

Comment: Mark Hart has been pounding the table about an imminent RMB crash for years, likely at the cost of several hundred million dollars. Bloomberg reports that he has now realized that the Yuan is not a market-based currency, Beijing has the political will to prevent its collapse and is not running out of foreign exchange reserves any time soon. I could have told him that years ago, but Hart appears to be one of those macro investors who already knew the answer and then found analysts/consultants who reinforced it, something I have seen many times with China macro types. Is Kyle Bass still betting on a crash? Kyle if you are reading this, call me…

Mark Hart spent seven years and $240 million waiting on a crash in China’s currency.

He lost sleep. He lost clients. He damn near lost his sanity.

And now he’s lost his conviction: Hart, who called for a more than 50 percent yuan devaluation last year, has turned bullish on China and its currency…

He wasn’t the only hedge fund manager to forecast a yuan crash. Hayman Capital Management’s Kyle Bass, who worked with Hart on the subprime mortgage bet, called for a 30 percent devaluation in February 2016, while Passport Capital’s John Burbank said three months later that he expected a “major” slump within a year. Managers from David Tepper to Crispin Odey made similar predictions in 2015.

Hart’s case, in a nutshell, is this: China’s currency is wildly overvalued. By some accounts, the yuan’s real effective exchange rate vs. the dollar is twice as high as it was two decades ago and almost 40 percent higher than it was in 2008. Hart foresees a one-off devaluation of at least 30 percent, maybe more, with consequences worse than those of the global financial crisis. Otherwise, he says, Beijing will just burn through foreign exchange reserves trying to fight a losing battle…

You might assume he developed these ideas on the ground, but he’s actually never set foot on the mainland. “You’re just subjecting yourself to hearing what they want you to hear,” says Hart, who’s opted to send his analysts instead. The closest he’s come is Hong Kong—an “adult Disneyland,” he quips.

The Current Reality: The weak dollar has been a boon to Beijing by helping to relieve depreciation pressure on the RMB. Beijing also rolled back RMB reform and tightened capital controls. Perhaps Hart will eventually be right, but good luck to anyone who is still betting on an imminent, sharp RMB drop…

“With the stronger yuan and easing capital-outflow pressures, the PBOC has no reason to burn foreign reserves as it did last year, so generally we’ll see the stockpile steady above the $3 trillion threshold for the rest of this year,” said Wang Qiufeng, an analyst at China Chengxin International Credit Rating Co. In Beijing. “Expectations for the yuan have completely shifted thanks to a weaker dollar.”

The yuan jumped to its strongest level in 16 months this week, bringing its total gain versus the dollar to 7% in 2017, more than recouping all of its decline last year. Last month alone, the yuan soared 2% against the dollar, notching its biggest monthly advance since July 2005…

For now, there are few signs of any meaningful market-oriented change in the offing. In fact, the yuan’s recent surge started when the central bank in late May asserted greater control over the currency by adding what it calls a “countercyclical” factor into the way it sets the yuan’s official rate against the dollar to prevent big fluctuations.

7. Beijing Giving Green Light For Technology and Manufacturing Deals

Comment: Another reminder that foreign regulators already suspicious of Chinese deals now have much more reason to question why the Communist Party is allowing any specific deal to proceed.

The rules are taking effect, as nonfinancial outbound direct investment (ODI) plummeted 44.3% year-on-year to $57.2 billion during the first seven months of the year. Real estate investment abroad fell 82.1%, while outbound investment in culture, sports and entertainment industries fell 79.1%, according to data from the Ministry of Commerce. Together, they accounted for a mere 3% of total nonfinancial ODI. Meanwhile, manufacturing and software and information technology sectors accounted for a much higher proportion of outbound investment at 18.4% and 11.2% respectively as of end-July.

“We’ve received support from the State Administration of Foreign Exchange (SAFE) (one of the regulators of outbound investments) after we emphasized the importance of the technology transfer brought about by this deal,” said Zhang Lin, vice director of a Chinese subsidiary that was set up to acquire Canadian automated production system manufacturer Valiant TMS Group.

In addition to the Made in China 2025 plan, the government has also released the Robotics Industry Development Plan, a five-year plan to rapidly expand the country’s industrial robotics sector. By 2020, China wants to be able to manufacture at least 100,000 industrial robots annually. The country is racing full steam ahead to a robot-powered future in a push to not only remake its own economy but also to transform into the world’s robot capital — overtaking Japan, Germany and the United States in the process.

8. Internet Tightening Continues; New Rules For Online Chat Groups

Comment: The Cyberspace Affairs Commission just issued new rules on online chat groups. Among other things founders of those groups will be legally responsible for comments. More tightening is to be expected, it is the new normal as Beijing works to cleanse and control ChiComNet.

Business, Economy And Trade

For China Banks, Two Roads Diverge – Caixin Global For starters, credit quality improved for most banks, big and small, as the economy stabilized. But risks are far from subsided, as the country’s fight against overcapacity in some industries and the state sector could result in more bad loans in the years to come. Also, fee and commission income fell for both big and small banks, as regulators clamped down on complex structured investment products that carried hidden risks.

Shanghai Mansion With Tumultuous Past Asks $24 Million – WSJ Currently owned by a Hong Kong-registered corporation, the leasehold continues until 2080, according to the agency Savills , which has the listing. Savills agent Roy Zhao estimates taxes will exceed 20 million yuan, or $3 million, on top of the sales price. In a city where luxury properties can sell for over $2,800 per square foot, Mr. Zhao says, “the price is not actually that high.”

China Cities Face Surging Funding Costs as Default Concerns Rise – Bloomberg Chinese investors are gradually accepting a new reality: the government is reducing support for the local funding units as it tries to curb their massive borrowings. In August, a builder of social welfare housing in the southern province of Hunan said it will change from a government financing arm to a regular state-owned company, fueling concern it will lose financial support from regional authorities. At least forty other LGFVs across China announced similar plans from 2015.

Rare Earth Metals Electrified by China’s Illegal Mining Clean-Up – Bloomberg Prices for “light” rare earths including neodymium and praseodymium have exploded in recent months as traders and consumers snap up material that’s becoming scarcer. China’s shutting down illegal producers as the industry is swept up in the same kind of government clampdowns that have shaken other metals markets in 2017. Among many other applications, the elements are needed to make magnets used in motors and turbines.

Beijing joins list of cities saying no to new shared bikes – TechNode After talks with execs from 15 major bike rental companies in the city, Beijing transportation authorities announced today that no more new bikes should be placed in the city (in Chinese). This makes Beijing the 12th city on the lengthening list of cities to halt new bike placement. Given that the capital city has always played a special role in leading governmental regulations, this announcement may trigger more cities to follow the suit.

Multinationals Fight for Their Margins in China – WSJ According to a recent report by the American Chamber of Commerce in Shanghai, slightly more than 80% of U.S. companies said competition from Chinese firms is one of their most pressing issues. Even more, 93%, cited rising costs—which adversely affects margins—as a challenge.

Beijing Business Sues Tesla, Alleging Sales Fraud – SixthTone The plaintiff, Holy Dash Technology & Development Co. Ltd., which sells mining and medical equipment, alleged to the Daxing District court that a saleswoman for the electric carmaker committed fraud by not disclosing that a Tesla Model X 100D sport utility vehicle, purchased for 1.2 million yuan, does not qualify as a “new energy vehicle” (NEV) in Beijing — a designation that carries with it better odds in the city’s notoriously competitive license plate lottery.

Xi Jinping’s younger brother Xi Yuanping and Liu Shaoqi’s son Liu Yuan appeared on the CCTV Evening News report of of the Yao Yilin Symposium. Pictures are on Twitter here. Xi’s brother looks like he is Straight Outta the Hutong. I mean that as a compliment, nothing like a good 北京爷们儿. As discussed in yesterday’s newsletter Xi’s absence should not be interpreted as a snub. He had BRICS, he sent his consigliere Li Zhanshu, and his brother…

四常委出席的座谈会 只邀请了一位省委书记_网易新闻Comment: a deep dive into the protocol behind symposiums like the one for Yao Yilin and some of the attendees

电视专题片《巡视利剑》今晚开播——中央纪委监察部网站Comment:Don’t forget to watch the first episode of the CCDI/Central Inspection Office/CCTV joint production of the series “The Sharp Sword of Inspections” tonight. Trailers here on the CCTV micro-site for the series

Chinese teenagers sentenced to hard labour for bullying – BBC News Fourteen girls aged 15 to 17 are currently involved in the five-to-seven day trial programme which began on Monday, and is run by the Tongzhou District People’s Court with local schools, according to local paper The Mirror. One student was given a sentence of one year and 10 months.

为建设法治中国凝聚强大精神力量–时政–人民网 本报北京9月5日电 （记者徐隽）反映全国模范法官邹碧华同志生前先进事迹的电影《邹碧华》4日下午在京举行首映式。中共中央政治局委员、中央政法委书记孟建柱在首映式前会见电影主创人员及邹碧华同志亲属。他指出，政法工作是蕴含丰富创作素材的艺术富矿，政法战线有许多感人肺腑的英雄事迹。希望广大文艺工作者深入学习贯彻习近平总书记系列重要讲话精神，努力创作更多文艺精品，大力弘扬政法先进典型，为建设法治中国凝聚强大精神力量。// Comment: Meng Jianzhu meets the creators of the movie “Zou Bihua” about a national model judge

Top legislator stresses socialist rule of law with Chinese characteristics – Xinhua Zhang, chairman of the Standing Committee of the National People’s Congress (NPC), made the remarks during an inspection tour of south China’s Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region from Tuesday to Wednesday, where he attended a symposium on local legislation. // Comment: Looks like all the Standing Committee members are doing one last provincial tour before the 19th

China tightens regulation of religion to ‘block extremism’ – Reuters China’s cabinet on Thursday passed new rules to regulate religion to bolster national security, fight extremism and restrict faith practiced outside organizations approved by the state. The document passed by Premier Li Keqiang updates a version of rules put into place in 2005 to allow the regulation of religion to better reflect “profound” changes in China and the world, the official Xinhua news agency reported.

Foreign And Defense Affairs

迈向伟大复兴新征程 – 中国军网Comment: Long Xinhua piece “Marching on the New Long March to the Great Renaissance” written on the occasion of the 90th anniversary year of the Nanchang uprising, the Autumn Harvest Uprising and the establishment of the Jinggangshan revolutionary base

Tech And Media

Facebook Is Said to Seek a Shanghai Office – The New York Times Facebook has for years entertained the idea of a Chinese office. In late 2015, it obtained a license to open an office in Beijing, but the permit lasted only three months and it could not establish a space in that time. Oculus, the virtual reality company Facebook bought three years ago, already has a Shanghai office. At the moment, Facebook uses third parties and its own employees to sell ads in China. Because of cybersecurity concerns, Facebook employees run special security software on devices when they travel in China and do not have access to secretive or critical business information.

How Tencent’s empire is making music pay – TechNode That dominance alone, however, doesn’t equal a lucrative business. For decades, Chinese people have gotten used to getting music for free in a piracy-unhampered country. “Our number of monthly active users accessing music is actually over 600 million, which means, at 15 million [paying subscribers], our conversion to subscription is still less than 3%,” says Vice President of TME Andy Ng in an interview with International Federation of the Phonographic Industry (IFPI). He adds that in more mature markets, the percentage is around 20-30%.

Helen Feng on the Future of Music and Everything Else – SixthTone Singer, VJ, promoter, music critic, event and tour manager — Helen Feng has worn many hats in China’s music industry since she first came to Beijing from the U.S. in 2002. Described by media as the “Blondie of China” and the “Queen of Beijing Rock,” the Beijing-born artist is perhaps best known as the lead vocalist for rock group Nova Heart, which was the first Chinese band to perform at U.K. music festival Glastonbury and is now working on a second album.

China Is Obsessed With Livestreaming, and the Censors Are Racing to Keep Up – Bloomberg China didn’t invent livestreaming, but the country has taken to it with fervor. In the past couple of years, the broadcasts have gone from nerd fringe to mainstream, with more than 200 million of China’s 730 million internet users watching on at least 1 of 200 Chinese apps, according to PwC. Viewers are transforming the economy with beans, hearts, and red envelopes; Credit Suisse Group AG estimates that all of the virtual thumbs-up, plus product sales spurred by promos, will total almost $5 billion this year, up from about $750 million in 2014. By comparison, the nation’s movie theaters expect to collect about $6.6 billion in box-office revenue.

Chinese Startup Racing Tesla Brings Driverless Trucks to Arizona – Bloomberg Haulage is ripe for disruption by automation because the industry faces a growing shortage of drivers and transporting cargo between fixed points is less complicated than city driving, says Chen Mo, 33, co-founder and chief executive officer of Beijing-based Tusimple, which is backed by Sina Corp., operator of China’s biggest microblogging site.

Society, Art, Sports, Culture And History

Women and Gender in China-About Launched in September 2017, WAGIC is a collaborative (hopefully soon bilingual) blog project that aims to provide a dedicated and accessible space for commentary about all aspects of gender, sexuality and feminism(s) in China (incl. contested parts thereof), past and present.

Asia’s Reckoning: China, Japan, and the Fate of U.S. Power in the Pacific Century: Richard McGregor: Amazon With unrivaled access to archives in the United States and Asia, as well as to many of the major players in all three countries, Richard McGregor has written a tale that blends the tectonic shifts in diplomacy with bitter domestic politics and the personalities driving them. It is a story not only of an overstretched America, but also of the rise and fall and rise of the great powers of Asia. The about-turn of Japan—from a colossus seemingly poised for world domination to a nation in inexorable decline in the space of two decades—has few parallels in modern history, as does the rapid rise of China—a country whose military is now larger than those of Japan, South Korea, Taiwan and southeast Asia’s combined.

Men working in IT, housewives most unfaithful – China Daily Beijing, Shanghai and Shenzhen are the top three cities with highest divorce rate in China, with Guangzhou, Xiamen, Taipei, Hong Kong, Dalian, Hangzhou and Harbin rounding out the top 10, 21st Century Business Herald reported, citing data from the Ministry of Civil Affairs. About 1.85 million couples got divorced during the first half of 2017, up 10.7 percent from the same period of the previous year. On the other hand, 5.58 million pairs, down 7.5 percent from 2016, got married in the first half.

Agriculture And Rural Issues

Dim Sums: Rural China Economics and Policy: China: Let Them Raise Donkeys China’s approach to “precise poverty alleviation” focuses on starting up industry chains to pull poor people out of poverty, both at home and abroad. At first glance, the “International Symposium on Donkey Industry Development” held last month in Shandong’s Dong’e County sounds like a joke to we who are unaware of the value of donkeys, but it was quite a serious occasion with millions of dollars at stake.

Education

The internet boom in foreigners teaching China’s children online | South China Morning Post Chinese parents currently pay for fewer extracurricular classes than their Asian neighbours. About 37 per cent of kids in China received tutoring last year, compared with the 70 per cent in places like Japan, Taiwan and South Korea, according to UBS. But the research firm projects that ratio will hit 50 per cent in five years, during which time the Chinese government expects the number of children attending kindergarten through 12th grade to swell to almost 200 million.

Jobs And Events

Eurasia Group | Associate, China (New York, Washington, DC) In this role, you will assess the politics of economic policies in China that are of relevance to Eurasia Group’s financial and corporate clients. You will have the ability to analyze specific sectors of the Chinese economy, and issues of concern to multinational companies in China, such as industrial and technology policies, market access barriers, and investment regulations.

Eurasia Group | Researcher, China (Washington, DC) In this role, you will assess the politics of economic policies in China that are of relevance to Eurasia Group’s financial and corporate clients. You will have the ability to analyze specific sectors of the Chinese economy. You will perform in-depth research and will write both short analyses and longer papers. You will therefore have excellent analytical and presentation (oral and written) skills and the ability to write in a good, succinct style at native English standard.